Brendan Rodgers accepts blame for Leicester's tame Europa League exit
Brendan Rodgers accepts blame for Leicester’s tame Europa League exit at home to Slavia Prague after starting in-form Harvey Barnes on the bench and playing Youri Tielemans out of position
- Leicester crashed out of the Europa League after losing 2-0 to Slavia Prague
- Lukas Provod scored early in the second half to give the Czech side a shock lead
- The Foxes could not muster a response before Abdallah Sima sealed the victory
Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers took the blame for the Foxes’ meek Europa League exit to Slavia Prague.
Second-half goals from Lukas Provod and Abdallah Sima helped Slavia deservedly win 2-0 on the night and on aggregate to reach the last 16.
Rodgers, who was missing the injured James Maddison and banned Kelechi Iheanacho, started with 13-goal Harvey Barnes on the bench with Youri Tielemans in a more advanced position but admitted his decisions failed to pay off.
Slavia Prague inflicted a shock 2-0 defeat on Leicester to knock them out of the Europa League
He said: ‘It’s my responsibility, I pick the team with the players we have available and clearly it didn’t work as well as I would have liked.
‘We have changed the team often enough through the season because we’ve carried injuries all year. The players are coming back from injury, we had to find a way to freshen up the team.
‘Overall, they were better than us and deserved to go through. We have to go away and learn from that.
‘We started pretty well, we had to be patient, but we never really created too many opportunities. I’m disappointed with the goals, in particular the second one – we have to defend with greater urgency.
The visitors from the Czech Republic deserved their win against a Leicester side lacking verve
‘It’s disappointing but I said to the players afterwards we have to learn from it. We can accept it a lot easier as we weren’t good enough on the night and over the two legs.
‘We’ll get back in, move on and we’ve enjoyed the European experience and we want to fight this year and be better next year.’
Rodgers was appointed Leicester boss two years ago on Friday but it was an unhappy anniversary for a manager who has never reached the last 16 of the competition in five attempts.
Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers took the blame for the Foxes’ meek Europa League exit
Leicester never seriously tested Ondrej Kolar, only Cengiz Under’s early low cross troubling the goalkeeper, and Slavia grew in confidence after a patient approach to the last-32 second leg following last week’s 0-0 draw in Prague.
It paid off four minutes after the break when Provod arrived unmarked at the far post to volley in Nicolae Stanciu’s cross.
The goal further dented Leicester’s confidence and Slavia settled the tie with 11 minutes left after more poor defending from the hosts.
Peter Olayinka picked out Sima and with Caglar Soyuncu’s half-hearted attempt to block his shot, the striker found the bottom corner from 25 yards.
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